VENGEANCE IN VEGAS
A Minuscule Mystery by Hal Glatzer
Copyright 2003
No performance rights granted without express permission
of the author
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CAST OF CHARACTERS
MARK MARKHEIM, the Hollywood hawkshaw
OLLIE OWENS, owner of sporting-goods stores
SHEILA SHELBY, a distaff detective
VIVECA VICKERY, a big-league bowler
CASPAR COOPER, a great golfer
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SFX – Knock. Knock.
OLLIE
“Mark
Markheim?”
MARK
“My
office is open.”
OLLIE
“The
Hollywood hawkshaw?”
MARK
“Yeah,
yeah. Who’re you?”
OLLIE
“Ollie
Owens.”
MARK
“Oh.”
Owens
owned sixty sporting-goods stores in sixteen states, fronted by famous figures
from spectator sports.
“Sit. Sit.”
OLLIE
“Hey
– heard of Fred Filbert?”
MARK
“Mmm
hmm. Fabulous fullback. Bounced by the Bruins for breaking bones. Muscleman, now?”
OLLIE
“Bodyguard
for big-time sports stars.”
MARK
“Right,
right.”
OLLIE
“The
guy’s guarding Viveca Vickery, the big-league bowler, and her exhibitionist
ex-husband Caspar Cooper, the golf great.
But the bodyguard and the babe have become best buddies, all arm-in-arm
and kissy-kissy. The prince of putters is pissed, and there’s
been bad blood between
both of ‘em before. But now my man’s
missing.
MARK
“Vanished?”
OLLIE
“In
Vegas. Various men mentioned Markheim to me, as a
master man-hunter. Find Fred Filbert
fast, for a fat four-figure fee.”
MARK
“For
the fastest fellow-finding, figure five figures.”
The
seven succeding seconds were silent.
“Okay,
Owens?
OLLIE
“Okay.”
SFX [transition] – automobile
MARK
I’m
a slick sleuth in LaLaLand, so various violent Vegas vermin know my mug, might
mistake my mission and murder me. Mindful,
I rented a red Caddy convertible, ditched my day-to-day duds, and donned a
disguise: a hoary old houndstooth jacket jerked from the junkpile, plus a
pair of plaid pants and penny-loafers. I
laced up a lariet tie, too, and brushed down my brown crown with Brylcream.
Driving
the desert I nudged ninety. At nine
at night I started seeking the strongman on the Strip – that Vegas viaduct
that some assert is scenic. But by
four forty-five, I’d hit half the hotels and a quarter of the casinos without
contacting my quarry.
I’d
inquired indoors and outdoors, checked cheap chophouses, and plumbed pricy,
pretentious palaces, eying everyone. Saw
several drunken debutantes downing doubles; sleek, slim chicks checking out
hunky homeboys, and hairy hustlers making merry with married matrons, but
couldn’t connect with the missing man.
SFX – Crowd/indoors
MARK
Wearily,
I walked into Underwater Wonderworld, a humungous hotel fabricated like a
fishbowl, but glittering and glowing with enough electricity to light every
lightbulb burning on a couple of continents, and where everything, everywhere,
there, was named with nautical nomenclature.
Underwater
Wonderworld wasn’t a high spot for high-rollers, but its Barracuda Bar brought
in big business from boys barred from betting in ballparks.
Booths brimmed full of fat football fans, second-guessing stadium scrimages
re-run on various vivid video screens.
I
saw the spreads, took a ten-spot and put it on Pittsburgh, in advance of asking
around for Fred Filbert. Attired in
an appropriately artless style, like a Vegas vacationer, I believed I’d blended
in, but—
SHEILA
“Mark? Mark Markheim?”
MARK
“Shhh!”
I
swiveled, and saw Sheila Shelby: a distaff detective and a damn good gumshoe,
who I’d dated and – dumbly – I’d dumped.
“Still
a sleuth, Sheila?”
She
shuttled us aside, swiftly.
SHEILA
“Hired
by the hotel on a matter of murder. What’s
with the hideous hairstyle and houndstooth?
Hung over?”
MARK
“Here
on a hunt to find Fred Filbert.”
SHEILA
“Fine. He’s found.”
MARK
“Where? What—”
SHEILA
“That
matter of murder I mentioned. And
if you’re following Fred, fill me in, now.
Who wanted to whack him?”
MARK
“Almost
anybody. But tentatively, two snarling sporting-goods
store stars in the Owens organization who’re vacationing in Vegas. Help me hunt ‘em, honey. If either enterprised his exit, and
I name the nemesis, I can keep my client’s cash.”
SHEILA
“I
could cooperate. How about half your finder’s fee?”
MARK
“Sheila,
Sheila, love of my life– ”
SHEILA
“You
lack leads! Cops and coroner are keeping it quiet till
the body’s borne away, but I know when and how the huge he-man was
murdered. Fifty-fifty.”
MARK
“Vegas
is very vast. First, find me Caspar Cooper and Viveca Vickery.”
SHEILA
“Ha-a! Ha-a! He
and she are hanging out here in the hotel. Handshake, handsome.”
MARK
“Okay,
okay. How was he hit?”
SHEILA
“Hard. On the head, first, and found face-down, marinating
in the Mediterranean Marina.”
MARK
“Marina? In a dry desert?”
SHEILA
“A
most magnificent man-made marina, with waving, fifty-foot fountains.
Underwater Wonderworld’s underground aquifer feeds an aqueduct for
aquatic activities and aquacades – according to a big billboard.”
MARK
“When
was he wiped out?”
SHEILA
“Oh,
one or so. Sighted sloshing by tired tourists who went
to watch the waves at two-twenty.”
MARK
“Tonight?”
SHEILA
“Hence
the hotel’s haste in hiring me, Mark, to pinpoint possible perpetrators.”
MARK
“What’s
the word on the wound in the cadaver’s cracked cranium?
Cooper carries clubs. And the
Vickery vixen brandishes a bowling ball.”
SHEILA
“Till
Forensics finishes, no one knows.”
MARK
“Then
tonight’s the time to talk to them, sister.
Someone might say something suspicious.”
SHEILA
“Suppose
neither knows Fred’s dead, either.”
MARK
“Well,
we won’t divulge we’re detectives.”
SHEILA
“Cool! Come on, comrade.”
SFX
[transition] – Casino/crowd
MARK
The
Catfish Casino was centrally situated: its four faraway corners connecting
it to the Barracuda Bar, the Mediterranean Marina, the Seashell Showbar, and
Neptune’s Nuptial Niche: a charming chapel of connubial convenience, and quite
crowded.
Crossing
the casino only confirmed my memory: compulsive customers are cuckoo. Blackjack buffs can’t count cards; couples with kids kill time at
keno; rubes run risks at roulette; poker players piddle away pots; and pitiful
people in wobbly wheelchairs are suckers for slots.
SFX – showbar/music in background
MARK
Sheila
and I were shoe-horned into the Seashell Showbar, where fifty-five floodlights
flickered, and seventeen sexy glamour-girls bounded around, bumping their
booties in see-through slips, feathers, frippery, and frou-frou.
I
wondered why we were watching. Sheila
smiled.
SHEILA
“Scores
in strikes and spares are slipping, so the league’s leading lady’s creating
a completely new career.”
MARK
Viveca
Vickery loomed large in the limelight, center stage, in a brief bikini-bottom,
balancing on a bowling ball. Her bare
bust bounced buoyantly as she wriggled to the rhythm, sang a scintillating
song, finished the finale, and fluttered away, acknow-ledging abundant applause. Sheila stayed put, politely, as I sidled up
to the side of the stage.
“Very
vivacious, Viveca.”
She
eyed my awful apparel, appalled. After
all, I looked like a bug-eyed bumpkin with a yen for young, firm flesh.
VIVECA
“Drop
dead!”
MARK
“Hold
on. I’m hoping to hire a heavyweight for personal
protection, and wondered whether your bodyguard’s too busy to—”
VIVECA
“Beat
it!”
MARK
“But—”
VIVECA
“See? See?”
MARK
She
showed me shiners, mostly masked by makeup,
but
black-and-blue beneath.
VIVECA
“The
bruiser battered me!”
MARK
“Bad
behavior for a bodyguard.”
VIVECA
“Bridegroom,
buddy! Fred Filbert married me at
midnight.”
MARK
Sheila
shuffled over.
SHEILA
“Batterers
are bad enough, but whoa! Wife-beaters
are bastards.”
VIVECA
“Believe
it. I gotta go.”
SHEILA
“Wait
– where’s the big bully now?”
VIVECA
“The
bum bolted away.”
SHEILA
“When?”
VIVECA
“One,
one-thirty, I think.”
MARK
“Could
he conceivably have connnected with Caspar Cooper in the casino?”
VIVECA
“No
way!”
MARK
“Why?”
VIVECA
“He
skipped straight from Neptune’s Nuptial Niche to the Barracuda Bar, and I
ain’t seen him since – which is wonderful!
So, ‘scuse me, I gotta go get set for my next number.”
SFX [transition] – Casino/crowd
MARK
Caspar
Cooper was ensconced in the Catfish Casino, comfortably committed to craps. He saw Sheila, smiled sweetly and displayed
dice.
CASPAR
“Blow
on the bones, beautiful, and make ’em make my point, please.”
SHEILA
“Unh
unh. I’d make ‘em miss.”
MARK
He
peered at my plug-ugly, un-glamorous getup.
CASPAR
(laughs) “Where’s home, weirdo? Walla-Walla? Whitehorse? The White House?”
MARK
“Wherever.”
CASPAR
“Whatever.”
MARK
He
slid his starched shirt-sleeves up, baring both ruddy wrists, and concentrated
keenly on the dice dancing in his hand.
CASPAR
“What
d’you want?”
MARK
“I’m
a friend of Fred Filbert’s. Seen him?”
He
dropped the dice, but kept his cool, calmly counted his chips, and cheerfully
chucked one to a waiting waitress.
CASPAR
“Someone
suggested I saw him, maybe?”
SHEILA
“Maybe. The man was married at midnight, too, so they
said.”
CASPAR
“So
the guy’s a gadabout groom. So what? Him and me, we played poker till two-ten, when
he left, losing.”
MARK
“You
sure?”
CASPAR
“Sure
I’m sure.”
MARK
“Seen
him subsequently?”
CASPAR
“Unh
unh. Told you: your man marched in at one oh-one
and tottered out at two-ten.”
MARK
I
seized his sleeve.
“Pretty
precise. Where’s your watch?”
CASPAR
“Took
the time from the casino clock catty-corner to the cashier.
Can I cut out, now?”
MARK
“Nope. Sorry, sport. Handcuff him, Sheila.”
SHEILA
“Sure!”
MARK
Her
metal manacles had hold of his hands in a heartbeat.
SHEILA
“Done,
my dear. And I’ll have the hotel’s security service
pick up his pretty partner in criminal conspiracy.”
SFX [transition] – Music
MARK
The
next night, we owned up to Ollie Owens, and pocketed the payoff.
“The
guy was a gifted golfer and the babe was a brilliant bowler.
But being hot-heads and lousy liars is what busted ‘em both.”
SHEILA
“The
boorish bodyguard hit and hurt his bare-breasted bride.
So she knocked in his noggin and convinced Caspar to come in on a cover-up. The two together threw the thug in the murky
marina.”
OLLIE
“How’d
you two happen to hang it on her and him so hastily?
And drop the double-talk, too!”
SHEILA
“It
was obvious. You can’t get from one function-room to another
in Las Vegas without going through a casino.”
MARK
“And
casinos don’t have clocks.”
SFX – Music [under ANNCR/credits]